Since the introduction of domestication the relationship of humans with the rest of the animal kingdom turned into a complicated affair. The tension between self and other implicit in agricultural societies resulted in an attitude that tended to the domination of everything that was considered as “not-me” (0.24). It is this tension where we find the primary impulse that leads to the founding of the first hunting reservoirs—thresholds between the inside and the outside of the domus (0.27)—which find their consolidation in the paradeisos of Assyrian, Lydian, and Persian aristocracies. The reason for dedicating considerable efforts to building and maintaining hunting and recreation grounds can be summed up in two words: status and prestige.

In the words of Hella Haasse: 

… the parks of the most powerful men on earth were never mere recreation places; its main function was to convince the people and the visitors of its owner’s power. The potential utility of a garden as an orchard for the cultivation of fruits or spices was of very secondary importance, and the charm of the place depended on the extent to which it caused admiration and distilled authority. In the end, a man must be very powerful if he is able to give new life to the wonders of paradise in a place of his choice.¹

The evolution of these hunting parks into recreation places for the elites and private collections of exotic animals is rather evident. The first collections of wild animals “represented significant power and distinction. Thus, for much of the greater portion of the history, private zoos have served principally as important symbols of prestige, especially for the nobility, speaking status like living jewels… Ownership of wild animals could signify a man’s power over other men as much as his dominance over the beasts.”².

Animal parks are found in virtually in every sedentary culture on the planet. They appear in the fourth millennium BC in the Sumerian city of Ur and also in Egypt (Ramses II had giraffes and lions, which also accompanied him to the battlefield). Tiglath-Pileser I, infamous Assyrian tyrant descended from the biblical Nimrod (1.5), had a pond for hippopotamus in his Royal zoo and several pits to exhibit all sorts of felines. Wen-Wang, founder of the Chou dynasty (1046-771 BC) built a zoological garden within a gigantic park and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon kept lions in his private gardens. Ptolemy I, Alexander’s companion and founder of the dynasty that bears his name, founded one of the zoos that were considered one of the wonders of its time in Alexandria. On this side of the Atlantic, Montezuma’s royal gardens were unparalleled and his collection of animals included pumas, jaguars, llamas, bisons and all kinds of reptiles and birds. Imagine Hernán Cortés’ surprise when he discovered that this zoo dwarfed any private collection in Europe.

Even if they didn’t reach the dimensions of the Montezuma’s gardens, the European menageries of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were faithful reflections of the animal variety of Europe, Africa, Asia and even America. However, according to Morris Berman, by the start of modernity the tension between self and other was about to reach new heights, a matter perfectly exemplified in one particular anecdote: the morning of January 20, 1583, after going to mass, Henri III of France

shot and killed every animal in his menagerie, of mainly lions, bears, camels, monkeys, and parrots. He said he had dreamed that they were going to eat him.³

By the end of the sixteenth century, on the eve of the scientific revolution, the return of the repressed—of all that is not of the home or unheimlich (0.24)—is exacerbated to the point of elevating human cruelty to unsuspected heights.

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1. Haasse, Los jardines de Bomarzo, 37. ↩︎
2. David Hancocks, A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future, 7. ↩︎
3. Ibid., 33. ↩︎